Peter Grimes

Story by John Kelley

last updated November 14, 2011

Broadcasts from the Houston Grand Opera continue at noon this Saturday, November 19, with a performance of Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto in English adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of the poem The Borough by George Crabbe. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional village which shares some similarities with Crabbe's, and later Britten's, own home Aldeburgh, on England's east coast, around 1830.

Peter Grimes brings to the stage the human struggle of the individual versus the masses against the backdrop of the raging sea. The mysterious death of an apprentice ignites the town’s suspicions against the fisherman Peter Grimes, sung by Anthony Dean Griffey. School-mistress Ellen Orford, sung by Katie Van Kooten, is his only ally.

Directed by Tony Award nominee Neil Armfield ("Exit the King" – Broadway 2009), Houston Grand Opera's co-production of Britten's masterpiece garnered enthusiastic accolades at its Australian premiere. Houston Grand Opera Music Director Patrick Summers conducts the performance for radio, which will run approximately three hours.

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